For a continent that has historically been largely unconnected via land-based telecommunications, mobile telephony uptake over the last few years has been nothing short of a revolution on the African continent.

In 1995 there were an estimated 600 000 mobile phone subscriptions in Africa. A decade later this number rose to 87 million and in 2012 it was estimated that there were 735 million mobile subscriptions on the continent. This makes Africa currently the fastest growing and second largest market for mobile phones.

For the first time in its history, large numbers of African’s can communicate with each other over distance, receive information and access services via mobile devices. As a result mobile telephony has significantly impacted the way people communicate, socialise, play, pay for things and interact with governments.

These connections also offer an opportunity for education.

Mobile technologies are being used to distribute educational materials, support reading and enable peer-to-peer learning and remote tutoring through social networking services.

A tangible example of this is Mxit, Africa’s largest home-grown mobile social network. The South African technology start-up service not only allows its mostly young users to stay in touch by text chatting, it also facilitates live tutoring for mathematics homework. Dr Math on Mxit, a project launched in 2007, has helped more than 32 000 school-aged children work through math problems by connecting them with tutors for live chat sessions.

While the mobile revolution is taking off in Africa, it must be noted that the mobile landscape is spread unevenly across and within countries on the continent. Some areas have good mobile broadband in place, while in others access is unreliable and limited to basic services such as voice calls and SMS.

To have a real impact on education, mobile learning initiatives must — and do in Africa — cater to a range of technology contexts.

An example is Nokia Life, an information service with more than 70 million subscribers in India, China, Indonesia and Nigeria. In Nigeria popular information channels deliver exam preparation tips for middle and high-school students, health education aimed at families, and English language learning. The service has traditionally used SMS to deliver the content. Nokia Life+, launched in late 2012, uses mobile data to offer an improved content experience. As mobile data connectivity infrastructure improves, additional services will come online across Africa.

However, the barriers to fully realising the potential of mobile learning in Africa are often complex and significant.

For instance, while prices for mobile usage have dropped, they are still too high for many Africans, who spend on average 17% of their monthly income on mobile phones and connectivity plans. In comparison, people in North America and Western Europe spend under 2%. Additional obstacles include a shortage of local-language content, low levels of literacy that make mobile learning difficult and low, but growing, numbers of smart-phones and digital tablets that could enable richer mobile learning experiences.

School or district policies that ban mobile phone usage are another hindrance. Still, despite the challenges, which are increasingly being addressed, mobile learning, either alone or in combination with existing approaches, is supporting and extending education in ways not possible before on the continent.

In recent years the promise of 1:1 ICT solutions have shifted from laptops to newer and more mobile technologies, namely tablet computers and mobile phones. The past decade has seen a surge in the number and types of physical devices that can support digital platforms. Where it was once possible to categorise devices into three broadly delineated “classes” — mobile phones, tablet computers and desktop computers — the lines between these devices have shifted and blurred, and today technology that fits comfortably in a person’s pocket or handbag can open a plethora of educational opportunities previously restricted to stationary technology.

Small devices are hardly limited in terms of power. A high-end smart-phone has the same computing power and many of the same multimedia functionalities as mid-range desktops computers that are 20 times as large. Additionally, high-resolution touch screens, intuitive operating systems and applications designed specifically for use on small screens have mitigated, if not eliminated, many of the disadvantages of mobile technology vis-à-vis traditional desktop computers.

As mobile hardware and the networks that support them become more powerful, more dynamic and more affordable, the mobility of ICT offers new options for teaching and learning. ICT in education studies have historically conceptualised technology as existing in two separate spheres — at schools and in learners’ homes — but this dichotomous view is changing and does not fully describe how many young people use and conceive of technology.

Today, learners are likely to have ICT with them constantly, either at home, at school, on public transportation, at work, even in bed. Technology use is no longer, to a large extent, geographically constrained.

The widespread availability of ICT has also sparked important societal changes, and these changes are beginning to ripple into education. People are rightfully asking what easy and instant access to powerful ICT means for education.

This all sounds great, but note that a) it affects small numbers when it’s of any use, and b) when it is a large number of people it’s trivial (“exam tips” don’t amount to much). This looks like another example of social media being hyped disproportionately to its real reason for existing — which is mainly commercial. In other words, it ain’t about education, it’s about making profits for cellphone companies.

Which is surely no surprise.

Momma Cyndi

Wireless networks have been credited for more than 50% of the increase in GDP of Africa. How much more could we do if access was more accessible?

To think that a man landed on the moon using less technology than the most basic cell phones of today. My first computer was state of the art and had 56 mega bite of memory. Beam me up, Scotty!

NImming

@ The Creator – check out Siyavula’s Science and Maths textbooks. They offer videos on cell phone linked to the content in their textbooks, which kids can access during lesson, or homework. They also offer a service called ‘Intelligent Practice’ which allows pupils to access 1000s of practice questions, with step-by-step memos. Teachers can link to their pupils’ accounts, to see what revision work pupils have done, and how they fared – and all this, via cell phones.

And what about pupils being able to tweet their teachers after hours, or connect with them, or review lesson resources (podcasts, PDFs, etc) via Edmodo? (I speak as a teacher who is using mobile technology, and would hate to have to do without it. It has become integral to my teaching style, and is really helping my pupils.

So no, this is not just a social media hype. This is REAL help, in REAL time, for REAL problems.

CP654321

Mobile technology also has the potential to play a large role in linguistically diverse communities. It used to be very expensive to print bilingual textbooks, but this cost has been radically reduced with electronic publishing. Already the multilingual nature of wikipedia is a splendid example of what can be done.
The cost now is in the translation of appropriate materials. If we could select a thousand of the most relevant books, have them translated into the most used languages on the African continent, and have them available for instant download on and digital device, then the effect on African education could be dramatic.
Stage two of this kind of development would be the establishment of translation centres where for example teachers could send examination papers in one language and immediately have them available in a large number of other languages. This would aid multilingual teaching in urban schools where the learners come from very divers linguistic backgrounds.

http://www.fuoye.edu.ng ubababs

The mobile technology has the potential to carry out vital role in various communities.It has reduced the high cost of printing textbook,it has also harmonized and simplified the education to a very great level,thereby making it possible for students to download educational materials for studying.

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Lee-Roy Chetty holds a Master's degree in Media studies from the University of Cape Town and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A two-time recipient of the National Research Fund Scholarship, he is currently completing his PhD at UCT and is the author of a book titled – Imagining Web 3.0 Follow him on Twitter @leeroy_chetty. He can also be contacted via e-mail at [email protected]